Our Vision

To redefine business and transform lives.

Our Mission

To create positive social, ecological, and economic impact through inclusive, transformative learning, and meaningful research.

Our Values

  • Passion: Our passion fuels us. We live to inspire, motivate, collaborate, and innovate for those we serve.
  • Real-World Engagement: We thrive in the face of real-world challenges–meeting our students’ needs; engaging with community partners on big issues, and pursuing research with meaningful implications.
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: We believe diversity, cultural awareness, and the inclusion of all people is paramount for institutional impact and global change. We believe that inclusion is necessary for excellence. This belief motivates all that we do.
  • Nurturer of Connections: We actively cultivate and nurture professional connections, so our students, staff, faculty, and community partners flourish. We are a hub for lifetime career networking and development.
  • Transformation: Driven by innovation and risk-taking, we create mutually transformative experiences to illuminate purpose and enable personal and professional discovery for positive societal outcomes.

Our Value Propositions

  1. Essential business mindset and tools for the greatest social impact
  2. Passionate commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
  3. Compelling and relevant research for industry and community
  4. Leader in community embedded experiential learning
  5. Lifelong access to learning and career support
  6. Active and engaged network for life

Our Community Goals

  • Job Readiness
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Experiential & Community-Based Learning
  • Inclusive & World-Class Research
  • Brand Reputation

These articulations of our vision, mission, values, and goals lead to six Strategic Initiatives. The initiatives are led by Strategic Initiative Facilitators. These facilitators work with existing committees, new task forces, faculty, staff, students, and alumni to execute the plan in such a way that anyone could experience The School of Business and easily recognize our strategy. Below is the full list of initiatives and their programs.
 

Strategic Initiatives & Programs

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1. Bridging Classroom and Career

Value Propositions: 1,2,4,5,6
Engage students and employers in mutually beneficial opportunities to establish The School of Business as a top talent pipeline. Offer the tools, services, and support necessary to empower students and alumni to reach their full potential.

  • Program 1: Retention and financial literacy
  • Program 2: Vibrant student and alumni communities
  • Program 3: Student career readiness
  • Program 4: Employer engagement
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2. Education 4.0

Value Propositions: 1,4
Implement student-centric contemporary curriculum that leverages technology and applied learning to enable students to acquire 21st century skills.

  • Program 1: Exceptional experiential, community-based learning, both locally and globally 
  • Program 2: Assurance of Learning (AoL) - curriculum continuous improvement through longer-term engagement with faculty
  • Program 3: Skills-based certificates and credentials - strategy, resourcing, and market-focused content
  • Program 4: Multi-modality courses - maintaining a variety of course modes (on campus, online, remote, and hybrid formats) to accommodate busy student lives
     
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3. Teaching Excellence

Value Propositions: 1,2,4,6
Develop a community of educators who pursue transformational teaching outcomes through innovative approaches.

  • Program 1: Effective feedback systems for student experience/faculty experience
  • Program 2: Faculty selection and onboarding for teaching excellence 
  • Program 3: Individual faculty support in teaching/learning 
  • Program 4: Robust organizational teaching/learning capability
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4. Inclusive Business

Value Propositions: 1,2
Foster an inclusive culture and support network to bolster underserved populations, who are leading the future of business.

  • Program 1: Underserved student access and success
  • Program 2: Faculty and staff diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) awareness, implementation, and culture change
  • Program 3: Strategic diverse talent recruitment and retention
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5. Socially, ecologically, and economically relevant research

Value Propositions: 2,3
Support and disseminate The School of Business’s research to heighten impact, relevance, and reputation.

  • Program 1: Support faculty research activities through the provision of necessary resources
  • Program 2: Facilitate dissemination of faculty research to maximize research impact
  • Program 3: Become a hub of intellectual activity by developing partnerships with other institutions and scholars
     
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6. Community Vitality

Value Propositions: 2,4,6
Engage external stakeholders in high impact, meaningful ways from the foundation of a healthy internal community.

  • Program 1: Strategic partnerships
  • Program 2: 100% faculty and staff onboarding
  • Program 3: Healthy internal community: faculty/staff support and fun

Initiative icons created by PSU graphic design and business student Lupita Sanchez Lopez.

Process

In 2017-2018, a team of business faculty, staff, and students derived the foundational elements of our Strategic Plan through multiple stakeholder workshops including students, staff, faculty, alumni, and corporate partners to learn more about our value as a School from multiple perspectives. This work resulted in six Strategic Initiatives that position us to serve our ecosystem with the most significant positive impact possible.  

From the start, the process was guided by our desire to be a force in improving social, ecological, and economic outcomes within our local and global ecosystem. Our process was rooted in multi-stakeholder engagement, where we relentlessly pursued stakeholder value creation while simultaneously considering cost, both direct financial cost as well as opportunity costs.     

Through multi-stakeholder engagement that ranged from senior leaders on our Business Advisory Council and our Graduate Business Alumni Council, to students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community partners, we assessed hundreds of ideas for ways to positively affect the outcomes of our students and partners with the goal of redefining how business is done. We conducted this triage process over a number of months while keeping in mind the evolving higher education landscape, Industry 4.0 shifts, demographic trends, and the imperative of racial equity.

Metrics

For each program, metrics are set over a five-year time horizon. The Strategic Initiative Facilitators and their Work Groups are tracking performance to goals. Work Groups may include faculty and staff who are directly responsible for executing programs or existing or new committees and task forces. Where relevant, students, alumni, mentors, and the business community have joined Work Groups to execute the programs. Our six Strategic Initiatives reflect an integrated system enabling the pursuit of our vision of redefining business and transforming lives.

Collaborators

Over 150 people were involved in creating our Strategic Plan. The teams included the following:

  • Strategic Plan Task Force
  • Ideation Team 
  • Planning Team
  • Strategic Plan Implementation Task Force
  • Strategic Plan Facilitators and Work Groups